On Island Time

Snorkeling at Leon Dormido off of San Cristobal Island

I’ve been living on San Cristobal for about a month now. As a native New Yorker I thought adjusting to island time might be a problem but I eased right into it. My technology even revolted against time when my watch battery stopped last week. I will note that although I’ve acclimated to island time I often find myself having to balance the slow pace of life with the fast pace of syllabi, exams, papers, etc.

A San Cristobal Giant Tortoise at the Galapaguerra breeding center

Island time is like living in a time warp. On a daily basis it feels like the scales of time have expanded, everything moves slower, not that much happens. But then all of a sudden a week’s gone by, then two, then three. All of a sudden I’ve left this post as a draft for 10 days and have to go back in to swap out 3 weeks for one month.

After a month I can look back and say I was busy with my evolutionary ecologyy and phylogenetics classes, visited the tortoise breeding center three times, and went snorkeling a bunch. Where did the rest of the time go though? What else have I been doing the past few weeks?

The only answer I can come up with is that apart from my time in class or working on things for class, all my time is just sucked up by the island. And, so far, I’ve been glad to spend my time this way.

The following is a fairly accurate representation of a typical day on the Galapagos:

1) Breakfast either at school or with my host family

2) Three hours of class, currently I’m studying molecular evolution and phylogenetics

3) Almuerzo: usually rice, fish, some kind of soup, and a glass of fresh juice.

4) Siesta either at my house or on the beach across the street from the university

5) Walk to one of the beaches on San Cristobal and either read or snorkel, always alert in the event of a sea lion attempting to run at me or commandeer my towel

6) Go to the banana stand for a chocobanana

7) Play some frisbee on Playa Mann, the beach across the street from the University, then watch the sunset and the male sea lions turf battle

8) Take another nap, then have dinner

9) Either do work for class the next day or play some cards with friends at the bar in town

Sunsets and sea lions are a standard part of my days on San Cristobal